Toddler undergoes heart transplant following cardiac arrest

An Alaska baby boy received a life-saving heart transplant just moments after going into cardiac arrest last week.

Stuart Berger, MD stated that Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and sudden cardiac death (SCD) in children and adolescents are relatively rare. However, because these are unexpected devastating conditions, concerted efforts have been made to continue to find evidence-based strategies that will prevent these events in a cost-effective manner.

Baby Lincoln Seay was born on July 14 last year with a rare, congenital defect where his heart was pointed on the wrong side of his body. The condition is called dextrocardia.

Mindy Seay, Lincoln s mother said, They had even said he might not survive birth we really had no idea what to expect, so when he came out and he cried and he looked great we were elated.

My son is on his last leg and everybody knew it me. Even my son would ask me do you think Lincoln's gonna make it and what do you say to that Rob said.

His heart began to fail and in a last ditch effort, his parents flew him to Seattle Children's Hospital for a heart transplant.

After countless surgeries, however, the baby's heart was still not working properly. His doctors told his parents that the baby needed a transplant.

Mindy and her husband Rob relocated the family from Anchorage, Alaska to Seattle to give their child the best shot at survival.

But at Lincoln's current age, his heart had begun to give out. Rob said the boy had started to decline.

He had a cardiac arrest and they were able to revive him, he told ABC News, noting that his son's color turned to purple. Since then, little Lincoln had been waiting for five months for a transplant.

Dr. Michael McMullen, Lincoln's transplant surgeon at Seattle Children's Hospital, said he thought the baby boy did not have much time left as he had been getting much sicker. But in a strange twist of fate, a donor appeared.

I think he was about to die on us, but right before he fell off the edge, a heart became available, the surgeon said.

We're hoping Lincoln's story gets people talking about it. I would just say thank you isn't enough there's no way to adequately describe how thankful we are that they made the decision to donate, Mindy said.

On the other hand, an earlier study stated that children who have experienced cardiac arrest can suffer long-term neurological damage or death, said NHLBI Acting Director Susan B. Shurin, M.D., a board-certified pediatrician.